Page 21 of The Ones We Fight For

“Okay, it’s not for me. Will you check on Piper? I can give you her number. I don’t know if I’m the right person to help her with certain things, and her mom’s gone. I wouldn’t ask, but since you gave me such good advice on tampons and we’re now friends…”

“We’ve been texting all morning.” Talia held up her phone, revealing a back-and-forth conversation between herself and Piper.

“Oh.” Walker blinked. “Does she know that…”

“That my dad killed her parents? Yes,” Talia replied bluntly.

“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll see you around, then?” Unsure of how exactly to proceed from there, he finger-gunned the air and clicked his tongue like an idiot.

“Yeah, you have my number.” Talia waved and walked off toward what Walker assumed was a rental car thanks to her run-in with Marty’s massive truck. At least, if she was going to ram into anyone, Marty was the best option. The guy was basically all smiles all the time, no matter what happened to him. Marty owned the local gas station closest to Cole and Paisley’s house and was always way too chipper in the mornings for Walker’s taste. His overly friendly vibe was just plain annoying. Walker was usually gruff and took a no-bullshit stance on most things, but Talia made him feel like he was about to give Marty a run for his money.

When Walker sat down in the seat of his mom-mobile, he couldn’t stop the smile from plastering his face. For someone who was annoyed by peppy people, he was doing a poor job of showing it. Between laughing with Piper that morning, having an anxiety attack, and coffee with Talia, he needed a freaking nap. There was no way people were meant to experience such an extreme range of emotions all in one day.

Chapter 7

Talia

“Girl, you are playing with fire.”

The accusation came with raised eyebrows and a slow, not altogether disapproving shake of Amala’s head. Talia’s short explanation of her newfound friendship with Walker had made Amala immediately suspicious. Talia couldn’t blame her, either. Somewhere out there, a bullshit meter was flying off the charts with every Walker-related sentence Talia tried to pass off as cool and casual.

“I don’t see how,” Talia lied through her teeth with a small, secretive smile. Amala followed closely as Talia walked in the direction of her office in the back of Lydia’s Grocery. “Also, why are you even here? You’re not supposed to be working today. What happened to staying in your pajamas all day and watching reality TV?”

“I’m a mom. That was wishful thinking—I didn’t even get to sleep in. The little brat woke me up at six a.m. blaring some awful pop song. Plus, you said you wanted to talk to me about something, and this is kind of like reality TV. I can live vicariously through your poor decision-making skills.” Amala reached down to pick up a can that had fallen off one of the shelves and put it back in its place.

“No working,” Talia scolded, smacking the top of Amala’s hand.

“You took over half of my job. I don’t know what to do with all this extra time now!” Amala whined.

“It was never your job. Jeff never did what he was supposed to, and you took over so everyone wouldn’t lose their jobs when he inevitably ran the store into the ground. I’ve seen the numbers. I saw how much you had to allocate to his liquor fund every month.” Talia walked into her office and motioned for Amala to sit.

“Well, Jeff never really marked anything out of inventory. He’d just come in, grab the things he wanted, and walk out. I had to account for it somehow. Between that and having the staff notify me when they saw him come in so I could figure out what items he left with using the security cameras, we made it work.” As if it wasn’t a big deal, Amala shrugged, unaware that to everyone who worked at Lydia’s, she was a hero.

“Don’t sell yourself short. I know how much of a pain in the ass it must have been. Speaking of, I have something for you.” Talia grinned in excitement, pulling out a manila envelope and holding it out to Amala. “I was going to wait till tomorrow, but seeing as you’re here…”

“What is it?” Amala narrowed her apprehensive eyes onto the envelope.

“You could open it, and that’ll probably tell you,” Talia said, shaking the envelope in Amala’s face.

The envelope was snatched out of Talia’s hand a second later when Amala conceded to her curiosity. Inside, the tabbed and marked packet waited for signatures. When Amala pulled the papers out, she stared down at them for several long seconds before her head snapped up in surprise.

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I am. Unless you don’t want to. You were already doing all the work for it. I just showed up out of nowhere and took over. You deserve it, and I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.” Talia smiled and reached out to grab Amala’s hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I am going to want to make some improvements, but those are all outlined in the ownership agreement that I had made by a third party so you know it’s not biased.”

“Biased? I wasn’t even expecting five percent stake in the store, let alone fifty! I can’t take this.” Amala shook her head wildly and slapped the packet down onto Talia’s desk. “You’re not even making me buy you out of the other half!”

“You already paid for it with your blood, sweat, and tears. You have more of a right to Lydia’s than I do, and I’m still taking the other fifty percent!” Talia argued and grabbed a pen from the holder on her desk, holding it out to Amala. “We’ll be partners. Take it, Amala. This place will only be better now that Jeff Cohen has nothing to do with it. You and I, we can make this something even better than you already have. You deserve to own the whole thing outright, but I quit my job and moved here, so I have to—”

“You’re insane,” Amala cut her off.

“That’s the second time I’ve been called that today. Walker’s words were actually you’re fucking insane, but close enough.”

“He would add ’fucking’ to it, considering I’m sure that’s exactly what he wants to do to you,” Amala smirked and grabbed the pen from Talia’s outstretched hand.

“Okay, I walked right into that one, but I’m going to firmly reiterate that that will not be happening,” Talia said defiantly.

“What won’t be happening?” a low, masculine voice called out from the doorway. Talia’s eyes went wide in alarm as she stared at the source of the interruption. Walker leaned casually against the doorframe, Piper beside him wearing more appropriate clothes than the day before. Amala looked over to the newcomers and then back to Talia, just about ready to break out the popcorn.

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